OU's Showers: Sports are ` what make me me'
My grandfather was a really good wrestler and was a high school wrestling coach at a private school for 40-plus years. He wrestled at the University of Michigan and he wrestled at the World Games. So sports were always in the picture for us as a family. It's kind of innate in us. We were always surrounded by it and love competition and being outside, doing something athletic.
I'm one of five kids — three boys, two girls — and all of us played sports growing up. My brothers did travel baseball, football, and wrestling. My sister played softball and basketball.
I had two brothers who played collegiate baseball at smaller schools. I would finish gymnastics practice and my mom and I would jump in the car and drive to a baseball tournament and be there the entire weekend. I love baseball as well.
My parents put all of us kids in gymnastics when we were toddlers for coordination, balance, and gross motor skills. I was really the only one who kept up with it.
I liked the idea of doing something a little bit different. My mom always said I was doing crazy things when I was younger — climbing trees, escaping from weird places, doing funky things with my body that she'd never seen. People kind of built me up and I liked being different and not doing a sport with a ball.
I was kind of the punching-bag for my brothers.
I didn't play football but we always had the dummies they use for practicing defense and I would always be the one who had to hold it for them.
Football is my alltime favorite sport. The environment at a football game — no matter if it's a high-school game, watching my brothers in rec leagues growing up, college, professional — it's a blast. How everyone's so pumped up and passionate about it. Their whole day revolves around this football game. It's so fun.
I grew up a big Michigan Wolverines fan. I was very lucky to have the Big House as one of the first college games. It was crazy. The songs and the different dances and things I picked up on when I was really young. The atmosphere was just so energetic. I kept wanting to go back.
I'm one of those people who has SportsCenter running throughout the day and I have the ESPN app. I'm so used to the alerts going off
every five minutes. The past month it's been so different. “The Last Dance” has been helpful just for something to look forward to.
I'm just trying to stay active even though sports aren't around. When it's a nice day I'll chip around a little bit, practice my short game and then I have a baseball glove and a ball so my roommate and I will play catch. I'm just trying to dabble because a world without sports is extremely boring.
Honestly this time without much going on has been helpful in my recovery process. I've had time to not just rest my body but also my
mental state. I'm feeling pretty good about it. I'm excited to start getting active again.
I've had surgeries so I haven't been able to run. It's kind of a cliche bucket-lister, but I really want to run a marathon one day. I know without gymnastics I am going to stay active and be an active person no matter what. I've got to find my way into sports somehow — watching sports, playing sports. They're what make me me.